Executioner's Lament
by Three-Eyed Squirrels
Summary: Wrote this about an hour after I finished Revelation. Wrote it because all the reading of spoilers did little to prepare me for what actually happened.


_No, not mine; it's somebody else's wound._

_I could never have borne it. So take the thing that happened, hide it, stick it in the ground._

_Whisk the lamps away..._

_Night._

-Anna Akhmatova, _Requiem_

* * *

Atrus, you've asked so much of me in the past. 

But you never asked me this.

There are so many things I am willing to help you with, and always have been. I don't know why...most people would quell at the things I've agreed to do for you, been too afraid to walk the paths that I have. And I understand why...what you have asked has never been easy or safe. Yet I have agreed to them. Perhaps it is because of our friendship...I have known so many people in my life but none were like you. Perhaps it is because for once in my otherwise dull life I have done something that has made a difference, even if it is for worlds that will never touch this one, and affected people who may someday forget my name and origins but always will remember what I did. Or perhaps because I one day found a book by accident and have seen--then was shown--wonders beyond the scope of anyone's imagination.

You called me here as a friend to help you make a difficult decision. I understand that and was willing to help...I know how hard such a thing can be, and how personal biases can easily cloud judgment. You came to show me your sons, after so many years, and help you decide their fate. But that is _it_, Atrus; that is all you asked. Help _you_ decide their fate: whether or not they are to stay imprisoned or be set free.

That's not a simple choice, I know. But I could have helped you. But then you were trapped on Rime and I had to make all the choices myself.

And what was I do to, first, as a judge? I visited those prison ages and saw each of them in startling clarity and free from past biases. I went to Spire...and how am I to judge there? To look at a man whose past was clouded with terrible crimes, ones that even now I do not excuse. I have seen how he affected countless lives and torn them apart. I remember Saavedro, twenty years trapped on J'nanin because of that man...Saavedro, whose pleas and cries still keep me awake on nights that are too warm to sleep. I was prepared to hate. I did hate. I do not excuse. Yet I sat in Spire on the lower level, with the green star shedding its light on the structure I was standing on, and I couldn't judge. Only a few days there with a Tomahna linking book easily accessible and I found my sanity fraying, the floating rocks and sparkling crystals, the cold wind and glowing stars eroding away at my otherwise stable mind. Twenty years...could I have done it? Could I have lived like that when it would be just so easy to take one step and fall for infinity through stars that, unlike that of the Fissure, offered no warmth or safety? When that would be the easiest choice, to end the madness, the steady wind slowly eroding away at my mind and my sanity, knowing that I would be trapped in this place for the rest of my natural life...

I can't judge that, Atrus.

Tearing through the jungles of Haven, I am surprised at what I found there. And it is easier to judge this. Oh at first I am skeptical, but then such sorrow I find here, such regret, such genuine repentance. I touch the elaborate paintings of the mangrees and of the bridge and wonder how such creativity could come from a man who I had seen build electric cages and horrid torture devices, only to realize that the creativity is one in the same...only back then it was twisted into horrifying things, while here on this tropical prison it was turned into something beautiful. Yet still I remember that he is as much at fault for all that happened in the past as his brother is. I can't forget the torture devices and the rotting heads and that monkey-chomper on Channelwood. It's impossible to. But here I find change, and it scares me almost as much as the monkey-chompers did. Can someone change this much? Yes, the answer is. Yes. But then what will happen to them? Should they be allowed to come home, as if nothing has happened in the past? Can they live again in a world with people and differences when they had become so used to solitude and a single world? I'd like to think so. I had hoped so.

But I can't judge that, either.

I was alone on Serenia when I had to give the sentence. I met them face-to-face for the first time, and that was the strangest of all. They looked at me and didn't know me, but I felt I had known them almost too personally, and didn't know what to say. Achenar I met first, and watching him stumble along with his words and explanations was almost painful because it was obvious he was not used to communicating with people. And Sirrus, that was terrible too, seeing the cunning manipulation and startling calm, but at the same time knowing the madness that hid behind the facade and didn't show itself to anyone yet was there all the same.

I found Yeesha. I saw what they were doing and learned their plan. I had to save Yeesha, someone who I saw grow up, who knew and trusted me, and...and at the same time, had to sentence two men who I just knew to fates that I didn't know.

I went to Dream after Yeesha. My intent was to save everyone I could, even though looking back now that was an impossible intent. And I tried, Atrus, I tried to save them. I didn't fully know what the ancestors asked of me until it was too late. Their words were simple enough. "Separate Sirrus' mind from Yeesha's." That's all I had to do and I was fine with that. The meaning was quite straightforward on the outset.

Only I learned too late that "separate" meant "choose." Choose one or the other. In order for Yeesha to live and be herself again, Sirrus must die. Or I could let him live, and Yeesha would be gone forever. I didn't realize this when I went into Dream. My spirit guide stayed with me and praised me when I managed to loosen their minds, and then…and…then…

Then there was a flash and the entirety of Dream seemed to shiver for a moment when I did that separation. I didn't realize what I had done at first. I wanted to say something happy to my guide of how I had finally accomplished this and now Yeesha would be all right. Except he spoke to me first, in strangely apathetic tones, of how without a guide to shield him, Sirrus was crushed and destroyed. That flash and those sparkles didn't mean separation…it meant _death. _It meant that with the force of my will and my hands shaping the memories, I had chosen Yeesha's life over his and seen him shattered and lost.

It was too much to contemplate. I returned to the waking world feeling terribly cold and thinking how utterly _impossible _that was, trying to convince myself that it all didn't happen. But I couldn't do that.

I had killed a monster. I had put to death someone who utterly deserved it, who lived to wreak destruction and sadness to everyone he touched. It was only _right _that he should die in such a strange and terrible way. If I didn't, he would have killed Yeesha. He would have killed us _all. _But I also killed a genius; a strange, twisted man with a brilliant mind and such pride and such…such _strength. _I couldn't have lived on Spire all those years. I don't think anyone could. Yet he managed to take that maddening world and turn it into something. I don't know anyone who could have done that. I killed someone who in another time and place could have been great.

"You did it!" my spirit guide said. As if I had done something that I should be proud of.

I stumbled out of the chair and started to walk over to Yeesha. She turned to look at me, and I couldn't make out the expression on her face. Then Achenar looked at me. He was gasping, every breath sounding like it was being dragged reluctantly from the air. He smiled at me, though it was a weak and far away smile.

"We did it," he said, and the way he said it was entirely different from that of my spirit guide. My spirit guide sounded congratulatory, but Achenar sounded only tired and factual, as if he was no more proud of it than I was. And I found it strangest of all, as he spoke to me then, that I understood him. For the first time since I met him on Myst, I wasn't at all afraid. We were different people from different worlds, but our hearts had common places and it was only at this moment that I realized this.

And now that I realized it, he was dying.

For a moment I was mad at him. I wanted to go over and shake him hard and _order _him not to die, because he _couldn't. _Not now, after all this! There was so much more to be done, more we all had to do. He couldn't die now when life was just beginning. But there was nothing I could do, and I never felt more helpless in my life as I watched the life of this man who I hated and feared slowly die away, giving up everything so that Yeesha and I could live.

I spent so much time hating him. I condemned him the moment I entered Stoneship countless years ago and saw that skeleton lampshade. Ever since then my opinion hadn't wavered a bit, and even when I met him here, all I could think about was Narayan and the torture devices in Mechanical. I didn't trust him. I didn't like him. And here he was, saying that _we _did it, some sort of strange partnership that made no sense but existed at that moment for a single desperate purpose that we fulfilled. Together. Working with someone I barely know but always hated. He probably knew how much I didn't trust him and yet he still said that _we _did it. As if in that moment I was not so much a stranger as an equal, a friend. And then he died to save us.

I didn't deserve that sacrifice.

In Dream maybe I could have found a way to save him. Between my spirit guide and I, I'm sure we could have done something. But we weren't in Dream anymore, and before five minutes passed, he rested his head on Yeesha's lap and the ragged breathing ceased.

Yeesha's hand shook as she stroked his thick, matted hair.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to both of them. "I'm so sorry."

Oh Atrus, you invited me here to help you make a choice. And here I was, forced to make a choice all myself...forced to be the judge, sentencer, and exceutioner, all at once.

Choose between your two children. Choose who lives and who dies. And that wasn't right, Atrus. That decision was not mine to make. It never was and it shouldn't have been. It's not my _place_ to decide that. Yet here a simple thought, touch, idea, in Dream, was able to tear apart one of what I was sure was one of the greatest minds to exist. And yet here the gas from a dying flower killed a man who I spent years and years hating and in that one moment found that I could forgive everything. And the scene played over and over in my mind…if I hadn't taken so long in Dream, if I had come sooner, if…if…if, there were so many things that _if _I did them, he would still be alive. But I did none of them and he died.

I came to help you, Atrus. I didn't come to see your sons die, one of them by my hand, one of them by his choice. It wasn't my right to make that judgment and those decisions.

But you're not here for me to tell this to. You're worlds away on Rime, and all I can do is kneel here next to the chair, my hand resting on Achenar's arm and my own arm around Yeesha, in the silence of the dying memory chamber and the last echo of Dream.


End file.
